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Hello, people around the world,
I’m the owner of two Breakaway Live licenses (two cores on one machine). BTW I’m sorry if I use so many activation requests, but I can’t live without BL on any of my computers 🙂 It’s one of the first things I install just after the sound drivers when I need to reinstall Windows. Anyway…
I’d like to ask you for some advice about home cinema systems, and specially how to make it sound the best way. I’ve recently set up a home cinema system in my appartment (with video projector and 5.1 sound, really enjoyable), but as for now, I didn’t found a correct way to have a good sound. You probably know, as I do, how film makers love to make us play with the volume knob while watching, in such a way you’re forced to push the sound up in talking parts and suddently (and quickly) turn it down when action comes. Moreover, this is particularly annoying in an appartment where you have to make sure people around you doesn’t hear you, or they’ll come to your door (and not bringing popcorn…). So you can see what I’m looking for: trying to have something that can keep sound in a range, but keeping most dynamics if possible (and of course with minimalistic delay, so lips and actions are still synced). Also a (simple) equalizer is welcome, to calibrate the speakers with the environment.
I had quite good results with BL (even not really calibred for this usage nor with the speakers I was using) but in a 2.1 configuration only (the .1 part was automatically driven by the speakers themselves, so that’s even more a "stereo" configuration here). And I really don’t know how BL could handle stereo front, stereo back, center and loudness. Specially, I don’t think buying a third core and making it run would do anything good, for the main reason that loudness and center won’t be considered mono, but both part of a stereo feed, which will certainly destroy both channels.
I also tried with a Freescale Symphony Soundbyte devboard, using the demo application provided with it, which seems to be focused on live multi-channel (up to 7.1) support, including special things for the loudness and center channel (low-pass and high-pass filters, bass boosts…). It has a compressor but it’s not as effective as possible. Big sounds are still big, and low talks are a bit noisy. And I can’t change is channel-by-channel, so it doesn’t sound much natural.
I didn’t try everything I could, but before losing any more time, I’d like if some of you came into the same problem. I don’t want to wear my headphones to watch a movie, I want it to be the best possible with the lowest budget of course. I’m sure there is a convaincing solution out there. Would you guys help me out on this one ? 🙂
Thanks in advance.
There will be a version of Breakaway (possibly called "Home Theater") for 5.1 audio upcoming, with speaker calibration as part of it. But the real awesome thing I think that will blow away people is the built in UPMAX II algorithm, the industry standard up-mixer as used on almost every large tv show/event there is. Including the SuperBowl for 6 years running, which btw had 111 million viewers last weekend. The most watched TV show of all time, running Leif’s audio processing. HUAAH!!
Look for that some time summer-ish (northern hemisphere).
The Linear Acoustic Upmax II that has released two upmixing processors, the Upmax II Reference Upmixer and Upmax 5.1 Channel Upmixer and they are pioneering in home theatre speakers with the others.
Uhh, what? No, Linear Acoustic does not make speakers. We do however make HDTV broadcast-oriented surround sound processing equipment, but price is way out of range for all but the wealthiest of consumers — even if AERO.qc is awesome for the living room. I have one in mine, but that reflects more on the fact that I wrote the software for it, than any financial status 🙂.
I do intend to make a Breakaway Home Theater software product, and I believe it will be exactly what you’re looking for, MWyann!
///Leif
Weirdly enough, I think that’s actually spam you’re replying to Leif. I have removed the URL within their message.
Ha! Interesting. Do you figure it could have scrounged the rest of the forum, found Linear Acoustic mentioned together with Upmixing and then thrown together a random sentence? Anything is possible I guess. Scarily enough, his English, as bad as it was, is better and more coherent than certain e-mails I’ve received from human native English speakers!
///Leif
Hey guys, I’m wondering if that’s really the intension of the movie makers. I’d be more inclined to say you don’t have everything setup right. There are big dynamic hits when explosions go off and there is only one way to get that! Why do you want to squeeze it with compression?
I’ve setup home theatre for a lot of people and I hear it all the time. They "can’t hear the talking" and then "boom" an explosion blows them out of their chair! I make sure they have the optical cable between their DVD and the AMP. That at leasts can tell the AMP what the movie is encoded in and give it some chance of being right (seperate to the human factor). Then it’s down to what silly echo effect the remote jumped you onto last time the cat sat on it!
Hey off topic abit- but does any one know where I can get just a Doldby 5.1 decoder for home theatre? No echoes etc wanted just the 5.1 channels please and a volume knob for more or less boom!
My advise is look at the way you have everything set. I’m sure the movie people would be shocked to hear you want to compress it. Hey don’t get me wrong I understand why too. I’ve used Yamaha for all my installs they have Night Theatre that raynes in the dynamics a fiar bit.
StationX, the intention of movie producers is to blow you out of your chair at the cinema.
As you know, this does not translate to home theaters. People indeed complain about not hearing the dialogue, and then having explosions be too loud anyway. Thus, some kind of compression is needed. The DRC built into Dolby Digital is wideband, largely ineffective, and takes all the power and feeling out of the audio.
Breakaway in 5.1 mode, on the other hand, works great — it controls the dynamics, makes dialog intelligible while making explosions still *sound* powerful and loud, without actually being much louder.
Apart from dynamics compression, Breakaway Home Theater will also include an excellent stereo to 5.1 dynamic upmixer for both stereo movies and music, as well as a 5.1 speaker controller so that you can get the most out of any system!
///Leif
How will you handle the lip sync?
With Breakaway 5.1 (6 channel) you need a lot more of CPU cycles then the normal 2 channel Breakaway.
There will be no latency between audio and video?
The latency isn’t set in stone yet, but it should be at least about as low as you can already get with Breakaway Live. There’s a few changes that made the latency lower, and there’s also some stuff to add (namely: Undo) that add latency. So it should at least be pretty close. 🙂 And in case you’re wondering, there’s no noticeable lag between audio & video. Have you tried playing video games with BAE? 🙂
[quote author=”JesseG”]The latency isn’t set in stone yet, but it should be at least about as low as you can already get with Breakaway Live.[/quote]
Then are you talking about 5.1 ASIO? Does that exist?
Sorry but you lost me, i don’t get it, can you elaborate some more?PS: i have a PS3 for games 🙂
[quote author=”Dj Buik”]Then are you talking about 5.1 ASIO? Does that exist?
Sorry but you lost me, i don’t get it, can you elaborate some more?PS: i have a PS3 for games 🙂[/quote]
You don’t need ASIO to have more than low enough latency to avoid audio/video sync problems. Try BAE on KS (Kernel Streaming) and even just try the "tiny" setting in the regular setup Wizard. 😉Windows Vista/7 offers even lower latency through the new audio APIs, so…
[quote author=”Leif”]I do intend to make a Breakaway Home Theater software product, and I believe it will be exactly what you’re looking for, MWyann![/quote]
Thanks for the confirmation Leif 🙂 I think I’ll enjoy it very soon then 🙂 I remember one time, when I simply connected a 2.1 sound system to BL, my neighbour who came watching Alien vs Predator with me at home with the video projector told me that he had the impression that "the sound came out of the wall"… 😉 And I do not have any latency problem with BL, I can watch movies, even play games and I never had a problem.
As I can read, BHT will then include the UPMAX II algorithm and Undo, amongst others… sounds promising, no pun intended 😉 If you want me to try it out here, you’re also welcome to test it here i you come to France some day 😉
I routinely play Super Mario on my Wii, with the Stereo analog outputs going into Inputs 7/8 of the 8-channel audio card I’m running on my dedicated home theater processor computer, with Upmixing to 5.1 and Breakaway processing. Latency is low enough to not be an issue when playing a game (sound effects), so lip sync is also not a problem 🙂.
Breakaway HT will not allow 5.1 audio input from an external source, it will be locked to the pipeline (so it will work with any software player — just like Breakaway Audio Enhancer). Breakaway HT *WILL* however, unlike BAE, allow a stereo input from a sound card, and upmix it to 5.1.
TCP/IP remote control and touch screen support will come standard in Breakaway HT (but be options in Live / BBP). It will also have a simple but powerful HTTP interface for automation of any/every aspect of the processing.
If I figure out how to run as an APO (Audio Processing Object) in Windows Vista/7, it will support that too. This would mean essentially being a plug-in of the sound card driver, so that you wouldn’t need to use a pipeline at all!
Undo will not be part of it — movies have TOO MUCH dynamics already 😉.
As for when, that’s a different story — Breakaway Broadcast and Breakaway Live take priority, then DJ, then HT. After that, maybe Breakaway CarPC 😀.
///Leif
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